Am I the only one that felt uncomfortable at how this journalist felt the need to make his biological dad aware that his long-lost son is Jeff Bezos? Not appropriate at all, and completely unnecessary involvement in their private lives.
(But seriously, if we as a culture are going to insist upon a look into celebrities' lives, I'd rather it be someone of value, who made something real, that benefited humankind, instead of Snooki or Honey Boo Boo.)
It definitely felt out of place and tacked on at the end. Strange decision, but I guess he felt he needed some way to drive views/sales for a man profiled a million times already.
If i'm buying something online, chances are regardless if the price is the same (usually its cheaper), i'll get it through Amazon. Partly because I have prime, but also because I know these guys will guarantee every part of the transaction is quick, and flawless.
But if they start making mistakes, moving to someone else is pretty easy. I think they realize there's no lock in (well right now...)
I signed up for Prime the day it was introduced, and a sizable portion of my income gets dumped onto Amazon. I would think that there are a sizable number of people like us who pay a small premium for the convenience, quality and selection. I don't think they've ever stated publicly if they make money on Prime customers (ie I buy a ton, but they have to take a bath when I two-day ship mouthwash).
Prime, until recently, was a fun way to have very large items next-day aired to you (lawnmowers, sheds, etc) for $3.99. They recently wised up to that, but I always wondered why they let that slip in the first place.
I don't have the source handy, but I recall they said that that something like 99% of direct prime fee goes to paying for the video content.
Where they make there money is in the shift in purchasing habits. Prime users spend something like eight times as much money as non prime users. They make their money back because of the large increase of purchase. Overall, the net something like $3/year/prime user.
I've been buying a decent amount of furniture lately with Prime for free shipping. Not 2 day but still, getting 60 pound stuff shipped for free has surely got to cost them.
When Bezos’s lieutenants learned of Wal-Mart’s counterbid, they ratcheted up the pressure, telling the Quidsi founders that “sensei” was such a furious competitor that he would drive diaper prices to zero if they sold to Bentonville.
“He had no background in control theory, no background in operating systems,” Jones says. “He only had minimum experience in the distribution centers and never spent weeks and months out on the line.” But Bezos laid out his argument on the whiteboard, and “every stinking thing he put down was correct and true,” Jones says. “It would be easier to stomach if we could prove he was wrong, but we couldn’t. That was a typical interaction with Jeff. He had this unbelievable ability to be incredibly intelligent about things he had nothing to do with, and he was totally ruthless about communicating it.”
And from Steve's second post:
Trust me folks, I saw this happen time and again, for years. Jeff Bezos has all these incredibly intelligent, experienced domain experts surrounding him at huge meetings, and on a daily basis he thinks of shit that they never saw coming. It’s a guaranteed facepalm fest.
Steve's posts give a much better account, though, since the control theory guy doesn't say what the argument was about, and why Jeff was right. Steve goes on to desribe his presentation to Jeff on what an engineer should know, how he hacked the presentation to make it intersesting for Jeff by removing enough from the presentation that Jeff had to mentally fill in the gaps, and what Jeff pointed out that Steve didn't add (machine learning or data mining).
A CEO that appears to know everything is a common theme in large founder-controlled companies:
I've soured a bit on Amazon. The algorithmic price fluctuations are my number one complaint. I used to love them because it was a no brainer. Sure I could surf around and find a slightly cheaper price, but Amazon has my card info, ships quick and back up their products. Now with the price fluctuations I feel obligated to check the price history on camelcamelcamel, surf around to see if it a good price. Basically now I have to think about it. I've also waffled on buying something for a while, make the decision only to find the price has gone up. I end up not buying or buying from someone else even though the price might be slightly higher just out of pure annoyance.
Then there is prime. Prime is great as long as you are a member. If not you are second class citizen. It used to be that the cheapest shipping option and now free shipping has an unspoken social contract. Give me a great rate (or free) and I accept the gamble that it might show up in two days or take the listed maximum of 9 days. The last few orders through Amazon I have watched the order sit there for three of four days at the fulfillment center to make sure it arrives in the five to nine day range for free shipping.
Then there are the merchants. There is sleaze all over the place here, especially in used books, but the fulfilled by amazon merchants are the worst. I can buy the same item from amazon or from a merchant with prices that are slightly cheaper, the same price, slightly more expensive, or an order of magnitude more expensive (literally, check the highest price next time you are shopping on amazon) from the same fulfillment center? WTF.
I still use Amazon but I would really like good competition here. I have had good luck with some of the big box stores online shopping. Similar prices and 5 to 9 day free shipping that shows up in three.
I would love to see someone compete with Amazon, but who on Earth can? I think most of their strength comes from their ridiculously good infrastructure; both technological and the $14bn they just spent on new warehouses.
Who the heck can compete with that? The only one in a position to (that I can think of) is Walmart, and I don't think their track record is very good thus far.
Although I can't find the source, I remember Amazon being referred to as the "world's largest charity" or some-such, because Bezos could give a heck about short term profits, and always push for the long-term gain. They're slowly taking over the world @.@.
I doubt Amazon would use expensive space in the warehouse to waste value by "letting a box sit in a corner" or something like that. All space in the warehouse must be dedicated to adding value to the customer, not taking it away, or else you're spending money on making your company worse with bad process. What is really going on is that they are actually using the shipping capacity of the warehouse or are getting better at stocking inventory that moves, so there is less idle time to catch up with low priority orders.
I order used books off Amazon constantly, and it's probably my #1 expense after food and shelter. Never had a single problem, but I pay attention to the 3rd party seller's history and read the extended descriptions that most of them fill out. I have no problem ordering from new sellers either and never ran into an issue, exercising due caution is much easier on Amazon than eBay.
I don't understand your argument about price. You seem to be arguing for less choice and consumer power.
Above all, the brand credibility goes a long way... In a far-west like the Web is, where rip-offs happen all the time, people tend to choose those few services that prove them selves worthy of their trust... JustFab was discussed here just a few days ago...
Even though Bezos changed the environment for online shopping he has yet to be profitable at Amazon. Which is a shame really. I think he deserves more especially with the contribution he's made to the online scape.
It's been estimated that their entire lifetime profit is about equal to their tax discount (lower price due to not having to collect and pay state and local tax) - makes one wonder what Bezos's genius is other than taking advantage of a tax loophole - and one which may very well go away in the future.
There's an argument that Bezos is forgoing short-term profits by re-investing those into growing the business (expanding into AWS, marketplaces, Zappos, Kindle, streaming media, etc, etc) and into aggressively competing on price to not leave much excess oxygen in the room for competitors.
That's very different from the potential profit profile if Amazon were seeking to maximize near-term profit as opposed to maximizing near-term growth, with the expectation that that maximizes long-term profit.
If Amazon loses it's tax exempt status in all jurisdictions it may well also lose profitability - the long term plan of cornering an unprofitable market is still unprofitable.
It merely has no obligation in most jurisdictions to collect sales tax on behalf of the local taxing jurisdiction. Those purchases aren't tax-exempt; it's just that it's the buyer's problem to comply, not Amazon's problem to comply. That many buyers "forget" to comply does not make them exempt. (And Amazon is not exempt, rather they never had an obligation in the first place.)
This could easily change if laws are passed requiring a online retailers like a Amazon to collect such taxes. The absence of such a requirement now gives Amazon a de facto tax exempt status.
Pro-tip, see if Amazon fulfills a desired product for a third party merchant. If you don't buy directly from Amazon, but they still fulfill logistics for the third party, you can get an item shipped via prime without sales tax if the third party is located outside Texas.
Note: I'm also a Texan who hasn't decreased his Amazon spend since sales tax started, if anything I've increased my Amazon spend over the last few quarters.
no it won't but it doesn't need to. I worked in a retail grocery store and was amazed at how low the margins were, shrjnkage and theft can really kill a business because of those small margins. I realised that I would never open such a business that depends on razor thin margins, but to your question, there are items that you will break even on or lose money such as bread, because you know that consumers will buy more goods. Its the same for Amazon, they need to get the purchase first. Diapers.com actually loose in their diapers but make their money on all the other products.
